Sunday, July 26, 2015

Pickup on 101 (1972)

Contrived and hokey, the
cross-generational road movie Pickup on
101 depicts the odyssey of three unlikely traveling companions: an elderly
hobo, a manipulative musician, and a sexy young woman experimenting with the
hippie lifestyle. Beliefs are challenged, relationships are formed, and secrets
are revealed as the young people learn about integrity and mortality from their
aged friend, and characters spend lots of time accusing each other of wasting
their lives. On some level, the picture is respectable inasmuch as it has
elements of sociopolitical questioning, with a dash of existentialism. Yet the
chaotic tone of the piece—which wobbles between comedy, drama, erotica, and
tragedy—reveals that Pickup at 101 is
as directionless as its characters. Were it not for the presence of interesting
actors in the leading roles, Pickup on
101 would be entirely forgettable.

Without describing the tiresome
circumstances by which the characters converge, suffice to say that the main
group comprises Jedediah (Jack Albertson), an old-school vagabond who travels
by hitching illegal rides on freight trains; Lester (Martin Sheen), a
self-important musician willing to do or say anything in order to get what he
wants; and Nicky (Lesley Ann Warren), a beautiful young woman who ditches her
uptight boyfriend, Chuck (Michael Ontkean), because he puts down her interest in
living on a commune. Jedediah, Lester, and Nicky share misadventures involving
an exploding car, hidden cash reserves, hitch-hiking, a night in jail, and plentiful
tension emanating from who does and/or doesn’t want to sleep with Nicky.
Eventually, the story coalesces into a bittersweet quest, but that doesn’t
happen until the last 20 minutes of the picture.

Despite the skill of the
actors involved, a general feeling of artificiality permeates Pickup on 101. For instance, the Nicky
character represents the openness and optimism of hippie culture, and yet
Warren is largely presented as an ornamental sex object. Similarly, the Lester
character seems to represent dilettantes who play the counterculture game for
opportunistic reasons, and yet Sheen vents a fair amount of legitimate
righteous indignation against The Man. The Jedediah character is the most
convincing one in the batch, perhaps because Albertson’s grizzled-wise-man
routine is so appealing. Every so often, Pickup
on 101 approaches provocative subject matter, as when Nicky contemplates
turning tricks in order to survive, but then the movie retracts into blandly
schematic storytelling. By the time the film reaches its hard-to-believe
sentimental conclusion, the bogus textures of Pickup at 101 have overwhelmed the precious few resonant nuances.